Wow. It is hard to believe this trip is almost over
already. I will be back on American soil in 4 days and a few hours! It has
flown by, but I feel like I have also been here forever. This experience has
been so amazing, and also really trying. It has been a good test of my
character, and I feel I have taken so much from it. I will never forget this once
in a life time opportunity! We have do one so many things since I’ve been here,
it is actually hard to remember all of them…. I wanted to take one last chance
before I have to buckle down for the final and talk about some highlights from
the last week of my trip…
First of all, we got the pleasure of going to the annual
joust here in town (yes… with knights “and stuff” <--- to quote what someone
actually asked me in response to telling them I was going.). I really enjoyed
the joust and all of the events surrounding it. They had a parade and a lot of
presentation leading up to the joust and the joust actually was over really
quickly. I don’t know how many people have the misconception that jousting happens
with two knights hitting each other with the lance, as often portrayed in
movies, but that isn’t how it goes (or at least not here). There is a metal
torso of a “knight” called a buratto at the end of the “runway” and he holds a
score sign that has from 1 to 5 points. 5 points is the bulls eye and I am told
it is pretty hard to get. Then the other numbers are aligned around the outside
of the target, where it is “easier” to hit. In the other hand of the buratto
there are metal balls connected on the end of a chain. If the knight gets hit
by these, then he loses half of his points. The knights can also double
whatever points they get if they happen to manage breaking their lance when
they hit the target. In total, each knight can receive up to 10 points (if they
hit the 5 points AND break their lance, which to be honest is not probably not
likely to happen…) There are 4 teams total and each team has 2 knights. After
the knight goes, the judges take the target up to their stand and decide what
their points will be. Once all 4 teams had went, they announced the winner and
the golden lance was handed off to the winning team (Porta San Adrea). I found
this whole thing really interesting, because while the joust is definitely a
fun sport type event for the locals here, it is also a very ceremonial thing as
well. There were so many different things being symbolized throughout the
events (such as flags with designs symbolizing the royal families that
represent each of the 4 teams). Also, after the actual joust was over, the
winning team and all of their supporters go up to a church nearby so that the
knights can be “blessed”. I went to the church for a few minutes, but I left
shortly after because there were a LOT of people all crammed together. I am
really glad I got to experience this while I was here and hopefully I can come
back again someday.
We have had lots of wine tastings since we have been
here, and a coffee tasting (which I really enjoyed. I don’t think I have ever
had legitimately “fresh” coffee before…), but this week we actually had an
olive oil and a honey tasting. We got to try 4 different kinds of olive oil
(here in Italy there are a LOT of types of olive oil). They poured the oil over
pieces of bread on a plate and we got to just take a piece to try. When I tried
the first one I felt like it tasted just like the extra virgin olive oil I cook
with at home. I didn’t really get any flavor from it, and it didn’t smell very
strongly like anything to me. Then, I tried a 2nd one, which I think
was my favorite. It had a very strong grassy type of smell to it, and also had
a much stronger flavor than the 1st one. I want to say that it
tasted grassy, but I feel like that is misleading because that doesn’t sound
very appealing at all. Although it tastes “grassy” it really just adds the
right amount of pungency to the oil to make it great for break dipping.. The 3rd
oil seemed like a combination of the 1st two to me. There was a
little bit more flavor to it, but it wasn’t as strong as the second one. The
smell was kind of different too and I find it hard to explain. I think it maybe
smelled a little bit like leather oddly enough, and I’m not sure why that is. The
flavor wasn’t too bad, but it was a little bitterer than what I would have
liked. The last one was really good as well. I didn’t get a lot out of the
smell of the oil, but the flavor was really good. It also had a little bit of a
grassy hint to it, but also had somewhat of a peppery feel to it that I didn’t
like. I have felt kind of silly at times, because we’re supposed to be smelling
wines and taking in the aroma and matching with things we recognize, but I
really do not get much from wines. I generally think they just smell really
strongly like alcohol and grapes, but with the oils I have gotten a little more
from the scents and tasting. We also tried 3 different kinds of honey with
cheese. I will just say that I don’t like honey on top of cheese…. The honeys
were really sweet, and I couldn’t pick out flavors from them either (although I
only tried a little bit, because the sweetness really hurts my teeth.
One of the days this week, we got to take a pasta
making class, which was really fun. I learned how to make gnocci! I think I
will try to do it when I get home. They took us through the entire process of
making ravioli, tagliotella, and gnocci, but I don’t have time to write all
about it so I will point out some interesting things about pasta making. First
of all, I learned a little about what kind of flour works best for the kind of
pasta desired. For ravioli, they said you have to use “hard wheat” flour. This
is because there is a higher protein to starch ratio in it than all-purpose
flour, and that works best for the ravioli. The same mixture was used for the
tagliotella as for the ravioli, but the gnocci works better with more starch,
so you can use all-purpose flour for that. I have always been curious how
ravioli were made, and it was really neat to learn about it. You make up the
dough, then roll it out really thin. After creating your filling for the
ravioli, you carefully spoon it in small piles onto the dough. You only do this
across about half of the dough, then you fold the remaining dough over to
enclose the filling. You have to go around and press the dough down really
firmly around the fillings for each single ravioli. Then you can take a special
cutter to cut them, or just use a knife and go around and cut them out then
make sure they are securely closed. After that the pasta is just boiled as any
other pasta is, and the toppings made and added on top (which we had no part
in)! The gnocci was really neat. I did not know that they mashed up the potatoes
and mixed them in with the dough. I always thought the potatoes were sliced up
and kind of coated in the dough like you do with fried chicken. Other than that
the process of making the gnocci was really similar to that of ravioli. We made
the dough, rolled it up and cut little squares out of it, then they took it off
to boil as well. Then we got to taste all of the pastas we made, and they were
all REALLY good!!
Well, I have to get to school for a study session,
but I will actually have more to write about later tonight / tomorrow morning
about the last vineyard we went to and the champagne tasting we’re doing at
class tonight!
I had some pictures to go along with this, but unfortunately my internet doesn't want to work well enough for me to post them. :(
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